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^ • THE 



ISSUES OF THE HOUR, 



POLITICAL AND MILITARY 



BEING 



REMINISCENCES AND CONCLUSIONS. 



t' 



THE CONGEALED ANGUISH OF THE OPPRESSED, ERST 

THE TAPESTRY OF HEAVEN, DISSOLVED BY THE 

TEARS OF THE BEREAVED, RETURNING, 

COMES TO BE THE SYMBOLS OF A 

PEOPLE'S DESOLATION. ^ 



'rt 



ROCHESTER, N. Y.: 

MILO DEFONZ, AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER. 

1863. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, April 6th, one 
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, by 

MILO DEFONZ, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern 
District of New York. 



X 339^^ 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 



■• I fed tliat Republicanism is extinct in our country. We ars 
ruk'I hfj an Oligarchy., and they are waiting only a convenient 
opporfun ify for setting aside the forms of Rejniblicajiism." 

Sucli were the words, verbatim, of a slaveholding planter of 
(leorgia — by name Davis — spoken to the writer on board the 
steamer from Wibnington, North Carolina, to Charleston, South 
Carolina, during the beautiful afternoon of the fourth of July. 
A. D.. 1850. 

In view of the circumstance that it was the concluding ele- 
ment of the most exciting day the writer had then experienced, 
a vivid recollection of the remark will not appear surprising, 
and its having proved itself the key to the greatest problem 
any people were ever required to solve, is sufficient occasion 
for making it the opening text of this discussion. 

Mr. Davis had proved himself a sincere friend, a patriotic 
gentlemen, and a conscientious slavocrat. He, with two others, 
all entire strangers to the writer, had quelled the rising of a 
mob. upon the cars, which had threatened to lynch this North- 
erner, because, that while riding through the turpentine forest 
of North Carolina, before breakfast, on the morning of the 
Fourth of July, he had conversed with his seat-mate, a Caro- 
linian, upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence. 
The conversation had been introduced by the query: '' Why 
don't you abolish slavery down here — ^your country looks as 



4 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

thougli the genius of desolation had brooded over it for 
centuries." My seat-mate had just entered the cars, and as he 
sat down, remarked : "It is eighteen miles to breakfast." Not 
a word of a specially irritating or exciting character had been 
spoken, but on leaving the car there was a continual fire in the 
rear, of such expressions as "He ought to be lynched;" "Its 
good enough for him;" "D — n him," etc. 

On reaching the door of the car, the object of the threats 
turned and replied: "You are a brave set, priding yourselves 
upon your chivalrous gallantry, and talk of lynching an un- 
armed stranger in your midst, for talking about the Declaration 
of Independence on the Fourth of July. 

A Creole, of New Orleans — name not given — gently tapped 
the speaker on the shoulder from behind, and earnestly, but 
emphatically, whispered, " Hist! Hist!'' And as the writer's 
eyes again sought the hotel, charged him, at his peril, to keep 
quiet. That gentleman comprehended the game, and remained 
to soothe the irate "Chivalry." All now seemed quiet, but 
while waiting upon the piazza for a chance at the wash-basin, 
one Captain McGrowan, from the Mexican war, a cotton man- 
ufacturer by slave labor, of Georgia, and son of a former 
Grovernor of that State, taking a knife from his pocket, opened 
it, and with his hand wiping the blade, which was about seven 
inches in length, shook it at the stranger, exclaiming: " That 
is a Southern argument, Gr — d d — n you — I told you not to say 
anything on that subject farther South !" This referred to a 
long conversation of the previous day, at Petersburg, Virginia, 
where we had been detained twenty-four hours, by the stoppage 
of the train, a log being placed upon the track by a negro whom 
the Conductor had previously abused. The Captain had in 
this conversation made one important admission, that '• In con- 
sequence of the truthful representation the Abolitionists had 
made of the scanty fare of slaves, the masters had increased 
their food and raiment to just double what it had previously 
been." But to the gallant Southerner's present threatening 
exhibition, the response was a quiet folding of the arms and 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR, 7 

Aye, all this and much else, is answered by those portentous 
words : " We are ruled by an Oligarchy, and they are waiting 
only a convenient opportunity for setting aside the forms of 
Republicanism," 

Rnled hy an OUgarcliy ! American citizens ruled by an 
Oligarchy ! O shade of the immortal founders of the American 
Republic ! The country you freed from the political despotism 
of the Old World, in the life of one generation, come to be 
ruled by an Oligarchy, before the weight of whose despotism 
that of Britain becomes lost in lightness ! 

Here, then, we have the essential /«c^, that this rebellion was 
all arranged, and settled, and provided for, more than ten years 
before its final culmination to a practical issue. Hence it is 
easy to comprehend what was meant by the assertions of the 
members of this same '- Oligarchy," when asserting that they 
would yet call the muster-roll of their slaves upon immortal 
Bunker Hill, and in the sacred shade of its monument. K\\ 
this formerly passed as idle gasconade, but does so no longer. 

But whence came this Oligarchy ? What were its originat- 
ing causes ? AVhat the antecedents of its constituents and 
abettors ? What their aims — and what their hopes of accom- 
plishment? All this is necessary to be understood by the 
republican elements of American society — and which includes 
all who to-day desire the perpetuity of free republican institu- 
tions. And it will not be out of place to, also, in such connec- 
tion, exhibit the origin of the republican ideas, the republican 
people, and the republican powers, of America, That republi- 
ca'liism to which we owe all that is superior in the appertainments 
of vVnierican life. And for this discussion it is necessary to 
revert briefly to the original settlement of this continent by the 
p]nglish. and to the then existing classes of British society. 

The first English settlement in America was in Virginia, and 
developed as a purely speculative adventure. Neither morals, 
religion, nor politics, had the least possible influence in the 
enterprise — and perhaps it would not do the original settlers 
any degree of injustice to add, that many of them were actuated 



8 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

by wholesome desire to escape the restraints of the first, the 
annoyances of the second, or the inflctions of the judicial 
department of the last. Certainly there existed in Britain at 
that time two essentially different classes of people — made such, 
by difference in the fundamental principles of their religious 
systems — or rather, by adopting religious formulas corresponding 
to their own innate characters. The great majority of the 
British people developed a religion of a quality which did not 
effectually interfere with the Cainish principle, that might 
makes right, and that any advantage of the strong over the weak 
is right, so long as the practical powers of judicial processes 
cannot be successfully applied to prevent spoliation. Such was 
also the quality of the religious ethics of the Waldenses, who 
settled in South Carolina — the Spanish, in Florida — the French, 
in Louisiana — and the English Papists, who settled Maryland. 

The other religious system of Britain, and which includes all 
sects of Dissenters from the political churches, was based upon 
the principle that, Right, and Wrong, were absolute qualities, not 
in the least varied by the incidental advantages, or disad- 
vantages, of either party. That the starting point of religious 
rectitude, and moral character, was a determination to do justice 
to all, as the highest duty of life, and a paramount obligation to 
God, and to man. 

The intense purity of life, exacted by the religious formulas 
Off the votaries of this type of ethics, evoked for them the cog- 
nomen of Puritans, a title destined to become the most honored 
of all which history of the past will transmit to future times. 
Persecuted from home by the religion of the state, the Puritans 
settled in New England, where the asperity of the climate 
forbid most speculations, except the cultivation of schoolhouses, 
meetinghouses and printinghouses. New York had already 
been settled by the Dutch of similar principles, and the Friends 
in Pennsylvania, and the Presbyterians in New Jersey, filled 
up the map of the original provinces of that country, whose 
descendants will forever glory in having been the original settlers 
ofPuritania. 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. O 

the remark : •• We Northerners carry our arguments in our 
hats." Too unsuspecting to dream of being in the least 
danger, this ninny had unconsciously played the hero. The 
gallant Captain lost color, closed his knife, and while returning 
it to his pocket, exclaimed: '-You are the d — est courageous 
man I ever met." Upon reflection it came to appear that the 
position had been the proper one for defense, in case of attack ; 
and the Captain had doubtless imagined the presence of con- 
cealed weapons. 

Breakfiist over, a seat in the car was resumed, the Creole 
friend took the seat back of it, Mr. Davis the one opposite him, 
a lady — young, but with a gritty upper lip — sat opposite 
the stranger, and a young professional gentleman the next for- 
ward of the lady. 

One of them immediately opened with the remark : "Now 
we want to discuss slavery with you." I declined, saying: "I 
have tested the Southern character, and found you are not the 
generous and hospitable people you are set up to be." They 
were not to be put off, and the subject was discussed till our 
arrival at Wilmington, at noon. Mr. Davis closing his part of 
the argument by saying : " If you will spend ten days with me, 
I will give you a plantation, slaves and all, if you do not at that 
time admit that it has changed your views of the subject." To 
this I replied : " My conviction is, that it would only increase my 
aversion to the institution, as all that I have seen of it has 
done ; that it did not seem just for me to accept his liberal offer, 
though I should like to visit his place." Next morning the 
friends came to me, as we were in sight of Charleston, and with 
every exhibition of friendly interest, besought me as my life 
was valued, not to give utterance there to the least syllable of 
disapprobation of slavery. But as we were passing Fort 
Sumter, now so famous, the Captain (McGrowan), pointing to 
its warlike aspect, remarked : "See what you will have to meet 
when there comes a war between the North and the South." 

To the words of our text, we had replied : "It may appear 
so from your stand-point, but be assured that when this oligarchy 



b THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

comes to make the attempt to set aside the forms of Republi- 
canism, it will awake at the North an under-current of which 
they little dream." He replied: -'What is it — is it the Abo- 
lition Party ?" "No." " What then ?" " It is the inherent 
feeling with which every child grows up ; that he sucks in with 
his mother's milk- that he is a part of the Grovernment of 
these United States." " So long as they are privileged to drop 
the ballot for choice of the servants who for them administer 
the Grovernment, they may remain quiet, although crafty men 
control the result. But once take from them the forms of self- 
government, the North will arise in unity and power as one 
man, for the preservation of their liberties." 

Why was it that thirteen years since, passengers in a rail- 
road car, traversing the gloomy turpentine forests of North 
Carolina, should become fre^m^d at the mention of the funda- 
mental principles of the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence ? 

Why would have ensued a similar excitement, with most 
likely a fiendish execution of diabolical threats, had the scene 
been laid, not even in any populous district of slavedom, but 
among the forsaken everglades of Florida, or amid the desola- 
tions of the most tenautless portions of the Alleghanies ? 

Why was it, that during the thirty years preceding the 
rebellion, those who have been constant in their clamor about 
the guaranties of the Constitution, feave as constantly illustra- 
ted their hollow-heartedness by such a disregard of its most 
important provisions, as to annihilate " the freedom of speech," 
•• the rights of citizenship," and " the rights of States," while 
travelling through, or sojourning in. any part of the slave 
country ? 

Why was it, that while the South were dependent upon the 
North for their teachers, and much other service, it was only 
by a lie on the lips, and with life in the hands, that an Amer- 
ican citizen could do business in its midst, or even travel 
there ? 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 9 

An exceedingly curious, as well as intensely interesting cir- 
cumstance, illustrative of the opposite characteristics of the 
settlers of the two regions now at deadly strife of both arms, 
and ideas, was the fact, that while the first ship load of Puri- 
tans were crossing the Atlantic in search of a speck of God's 
earth upon which they might be privileged to practise right 
between man and man, and perpetuate that virtue by a consci- 
entious worship of God — another vessel was also crossing the 
same ocean, with the first cargo of emigrants from a difi'erent 
continent, another race of men — not voluntary travellers — but 
stolen captives, the victims of the stronger — captured, enslaved 
and transported to a distant wilderness of a different climate — 
and doomed with their posterity, to an existence of the most 
abject, and rewardless servitude. 

That total disregard of the ultimate and absolute rights of 
Human Nature, cherished and practised by the first settlers of 
Mrgiuia, and its constant rebuke by the principles and lives 
of the Puritans, was the origin, and continued to be the cause, 
of that perpetual hate of the Yankee, which has become the 
fortieth and most important article of their episcopacy. 

Of course many good men. and much virtue, developed at the 
South — and many evil men, and their vices, marred the aspects 
of Puritan society — and its renegades, in the persons of peddlers 
and slavedrivers. have only fanned the flames of Southern 
hatred of the Yankees. 

Throughout Puritania. the culture of the most extreme ideas 
of the personal, and political, rights of all men, generated that 
watchfulness and tenacity which engendered the revolutionary 
contest — while the continual culture of governmentativeness, 
through the existence of slavery at the South, supplied the lack 
of other forces for a corresponding opposition to foreign aggres- 
sion. Here, too, must be excepted that at the North were 
some slaveocrats, and at the South some liberty-loving men. 
But the real virtue of the two parties of the country in that 
great struggle for political freedom, is illustrated by the factj. 
that Puritanism did four-fifths of the fighting with Wf as 



10 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

numerous a population, while the South would not enlist at all 
unless the Puritan armies should be commanded by a Southern 
general. Providentially such an one — a Puritan by nature and 
life, had already furnished prestige of the requisite greatness — 
and in the natural self-abnegating spirit of the Puritan, was 
nominated by the most honored voice from New England. 
Thus at the first National opportunity, the slaveocracy required 
to be propitiated by what did not belong to them — an injustice 
they have never failed to repeat at each recurring occasion. 
At the conclusion of the War of Independence, the country, 
but little acquainted with the radical principles illustrated by 
the history of the continual quarrels of the ancient Greek states, 
and their final complete subjugation by more consolidated 
neighbors — nor by the excessive governmental burdens sufiered 
by the petty principalities of Glermany and modern Italy — 
adopted a scheme of confederation consonant with the govern- 
mentive jealousy and state pride of slavedom, but which in 
time, proved a rope of sand. The wisdom derived from this 
experience led to the development and adoption of the present 
National Constitution. 

In the formation of this comj^act, under whose benign influ- 
ences the citizens have enjoyed a happiness more exalted than 
has ever before accrued to any people, the folly of state supre- 
macy was totally ignored, and the Potent Instrument com- 
mences, not "We, the States," etc., but. "We, the People of 
these United States, do enact,'' etc. 

And this primal statement is illustrated in a practical 
degree by the establishment of sixty fundamental propositions, 
divided into two hundred and fifty specific items, in which the 
States are held subject to the pre-eminent jurisdiction of the 
Central Grovernment — and every rooxl of land, and every human 
resident, subjected to its pre-eminent domain. 

As a favor of special value to most of our citizens who may 
chance to read this essay, the Constitution is here inserted. The 
ceaseless efforts of the slaveocracy to eviscerate every vestige of 
expression of antislavocratic character, from the literature of the 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 11 

country have so well succeeded, that but few people are found 
who have access to that document, which ought most certainly 
to be in its every paragraph familiar to each voter of the land. 
And from it the reader will also be able to discover, that not- 
withstanding the ceaseless claims of the K. G. O.'s, that is, the 
Cainites of the Grallows Crime, the President, has not yet, 
during the two years of war, in any essential particular, tran^ 
scended the powers with which he is invested by this 



CONSTITUTION 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

We, the People of the United States, iu order to form a more perfect 
union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the com- 
mon defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of lib- 
erty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitu- 
tion for the United States of America. 

ARTICLE 1,— Section 1. 

1. All legislative powers herein granted, shall be vested in a Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a senate, and house of represen- 
tatives. 

Section 2. 

1. The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen 
every second year, by the people of the several states ; and the electors 
in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most 
numerous branch of the state legislature. 

2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have attained to 
the age of twenty -five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United 
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in 
which he shall be chosen. 

3. Representatives, and direct taxes, shall be apportioned among the 
several states which may be included within this Union, according to 
their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the 
whole number of fi-ee persons, including those bound to service for a 
term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other 
persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after 



12 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every 
subsequent terra of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. 
The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty 
thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative ; and until 
such enumeration shall be made, the state of New Hampshire shall be 
entitled to choose three; Massachusetts, eight ; Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence Plantations, one ; Connecticut, five ; Xew York, six ; New-Jersey, 
four; Pennsylvania, eight; Delaware, one ; Maryland, six ; Virginia, ten ; 
North Carolina, five ; South Carolina, five ; and Georgia, three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any state, the 
executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill siich 
vacancies. 

5. The house of representatives shall choose their speaker, and other 
officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Section 3. 

1. The senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators 
from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each 
senator shall have one vote. 

2 Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the 
first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three 
classes. The seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the 
expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the 
fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of tlie sixth year, so 
that one-third may be chosen every second year ; and if vacancies happen, 
by resignation or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any 
state, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until 
the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained the age of 
thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and w^ho 
shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall 
be chosen. 

4. The vice-president of the United States shall be president of the 
Senate, but he shall have no vote unless they be equally divided. 

5. The senate shall choose their other ofiicers, and also a president pro 
tempore in the absence of the vice-president, or when he shall exercise the 
ofiice of president of the United States. 

6. The senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When 
sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the 
president of the United States is tried, the chief justice shall pi-eside ; and 
no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of 
the members present. 

7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than the 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 13 

remova] from office, and disqvialification to hold and enjoy any office of 
honoi-, trust or profit under the United States ; but the party convicted 
shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and 
punishment, according to law. 

Section 4. 

1. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and 
representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; 
but the congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, 
except as to the places of choosing senators. 

2. The congress shall assemble at least once in every year ; and such 
meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by 
law appoint a different day. 

Section 5. 

1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifica- 
t ions of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum 
to do business ; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and 
may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members in such 
manner and under such penalties as each house may provide. 

2. Each house may determine the rule of its proceedings, punish its 
members for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds, 
expel a member. 

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to 
time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment 
require secrecy ; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house 
on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be 
entered on the journal. 

4. Neither house, during the session of congress, shall, without the con- 
sent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place 
than that in \<^hich the two houses shall be sitting. 

Section 6. 

1. The senators and representatives shall receive a compensation for their 
services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the 
United States. They shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach 
of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the 
session of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the 
same ; and for any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be 
questioned in any other place. 

2. No senator or rejjresentative shall, during the time for which he was 
elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United 
States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall 

2 



14 THE ISStfES OF THE HOUR. 

have been increased, during such tinme ; and no person holding any office 
under the United States shall be a member of either house during his 
continuance in office. 

Section 7. 

1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house of repre- 
sentatives ; but the senate may propose or concur with amendments, as 
on other bills, 

2. Every bill which shall have passed the house of representatives aiul 
the senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the president of 
the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall 
return it with his objections, to that house in which it shall have origin- 
ated; who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed 
to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that house 
shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, 
to the other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered ; and if 
approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all 
cases, the votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and 
the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered 
on the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be 
returned by the president within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it 
shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner 
as if he had signed it, unless the congress by their adjournment prevent 
its return, in which case it shall not be a law, 

3. Every order, resolution or vote, to which the concurrence of the 
senate and house of representatives may be necessary, (except on a ques- 
tion of adjournment,) shall be presented to the president of the United 
States ; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him ; 
or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the 
Senate and house of representatives, according to the rules and limitations 
prescribed in the case of a bilL ' 

Section 8. 

The congress shall have power — 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to pay the 
debts, and provide for the common defence and general Avelfare of the 
United States ; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform 
throughout the United States : 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States : 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several 
states, and with the Indian tribes : 

4. To establisTi an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on 
the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States : 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 15 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and 
tix the standard of weights and measures ; 

6. To provide for tlie punishment of counterfeiting the securities and 
current coin of the United States : 

7. To establish post-offices and post-roads : 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for 
limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their 
respective writings and discoveries : 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court ; to define and 
punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences 
against the law of nations : 

10. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal,and make rules 
concerni)ig captures on land and water : 

11. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to 
that use shall be for a longer term than two years : 

12. To provide and maintain a navy : 

13. To make rules for tlie government and regulation of the land and 
naval forces : 

14. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions : 

15. To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and 
for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the 
United States ; reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the 
officers and the authority of training the militia according to the disci- 
pline prescribed by congress : 

16. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such 
district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular 
states, and the acceptance of congress, become the seat of government of 
the United States; and to exercise like authority over all places pur- 
chased, by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same 
shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and 
other needful buildings : — and 

17. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this 
constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department 
or officer thereof. 

Section 9. 

1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now 
existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Con- 
gress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight ; but a tax 
or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding ten dollars 
for each person. 



16 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, 
unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may 
require it. 

3. No bill of attainder, or ex post facto law, shall be passed. 

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion 
to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state. No 
preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to 
the ports of one state over tliose of another ; nor shall vessels bound to or 
from one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another. 

6. No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of 
appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement and account of the 
receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from 
time to time. 

7. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States ; and no 
person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the 
consent of the congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of 
any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 

Section 10. 

1. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation ; grant 
letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ; emit bills of credit; make 
anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts ; priss any 
bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of con- 
tracts ; or grant any title of nobility. 

2. No state shall without the consent of the congress, lay any imposts 
or duties on imports or exjjorts, except what may be absolutely necessary 
for executing its inspection laws ; and the net produce of all duties and 
imposts laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the 
Treasury of the United States, and all such laws shall be subject to the 
revision and control of the congress. No state shall, without the consent 
of congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time 
of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with 
a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such 
imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 

ARTICLE II.— Section I. 

1. The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United 
States of America. He shall hold his office during the terra of four years ; 
and, together with the vice-president, chosen for the same term, be elected 
as follows : 

2, Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof 
may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 17 

and representatives to wliich the state may be entitled in the congress ; 
but no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or 
profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 

3. The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot 
for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the 
same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the per- 
sons voted for. and of the number of votes for each ; which list they shall 
sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the 
United States, directed to the president of the senate. The president of 
the senate shall, in the presence of the senate and house of representatives, 
open all the certificates, and the votes sliall then be counted. The person 
having the greatest number of votes shall be the president, if such num- 
ber be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if there 
be more tlian one who have such majority, and have an equal number of 
votes, then the house of representatives shall immediately choose, by 
ballot, one of them for president ; and if no person have a majority, then, 
from tlie five highest on the list ; the said house shall, in like manner, 
choose the president. But in choosing the president, the votes shall be 
taken by states, the lepresentation from each state having one vote ; a 
quoruui for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two- 
thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a 
choice. In every case, after the choice of the president, the person hav- 
ing the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the vice-president . 
But if there should remain two or niore who have equal votes, the senate 
shall clioose from them, by ballot, the vice-president. 

4. The congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and 
the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same 
throughout the United States. 

5. No person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United 
States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to 
the office of president ; neither shall any person be eligible to that office 
who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been four- 
teen years a resident within the United States. 

6. In case of the removal of the president from office, or of his death, 
resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said 
office, the same shall devolve on the vice-president ; and the congress 
may, by law, provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or 
inability, both of the president and vice-president, declaring what officer 
shall then act as president ; and such officer shall act accordingly, until 
the disability be removed, or a president shall be elected. 

7. The president shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compen- 
sation, which shall neither be increased or diminished during the period 



IS THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

for which he shall have been elected ; and he shall not receive within 
that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

8. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the fol- 
lowing oath or affirmation : 

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office 
of President of the United States ; and will, to the best of my ability, 
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." 

Section 2. 

i. The president shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of 
the United States, and of tlie militia of the several states, when called into 
the actual service of the United States. He may require the opinion, in 
writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, npon 
any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices ; and he shall 
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United 
States, except in cases of impeachment. 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the 
senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present con- 
cur ; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of 
the senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, 
■judges of the supreme court, and ^all other officers of the Uiiited States 
whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which 
shall be established by law. But the congress may, by law, vest the 
appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, in the president 
alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 

3. The president shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may 
happen during the recess of the senate, by granting commissions, which 
shall expire at the end of their next session. 

Section 3. 
1. He shall from time to time, give to the congress information of tlie 
state of the Union, and recommend tx) their consideration such measures 
as he shall judge necessary and expedient. He may, on extraordinary 
occasions, convene both houses, or either of tliem ; and in case of disagree- 
ment between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may 
adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper. He shall receive 
ambassadors and other public ministers. He shall take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed ; and shall commission all the officers of the United 
States. 

Sectio7i 4. 

1. The president, vice-president, and all civil officers of the United 
States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction 
of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors. 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 19 

ARTICLE III.— Section 1. 
1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one 
supreme ^omrt, and in such inferior courts as the congress may, from time 
fto time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and infe- 
rior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior; and shall, at 
stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be 
diminished during their continuance in office. 

Sectio7i 2. 

1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases inlaw and equity arising 
under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made 
or which shall be made, under their authority ; to all cases affecting 
ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls ; to all cases of admiralty 
and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States 
shall be a party ; to controversies between two or more states ; between 
a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, 
between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different 
states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citi- 
zens or subjects. 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, 
and those in wliich a state shall be party, the supreme court shall have 
original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the supreme 
court shall have appellate jurisdiction, botli as to law and fact, with such 
exceptions, and under such regulations as the congress shall make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except iu <eases of impeachment, shall be by 
jury, and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall 
have been committed,; but when not committed within any state, the 
trial sliall be at such place oj- places as the congress may by law have 
directed. 

Section 3. 

1. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war 
against them or in adhering to their enetnies, giving them aid and com- 
fort, x^o person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of 
two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

2. The congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason ; 
but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, 
except during theJife of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE lY.— Section 1. 

1. Full faith and credit shall be given iii each state to the public acts, 
records, and judicial proceedings of every other state; and the congress 
may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, 
and proceedings, shall be proved, and the effect thereof. 



20 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

Section 2. 

1. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges niid 
immunities of citizens in the several states. 

2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, 
who shall flee from justice, and be found in anotlier state, shall, on demand 
of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, 
to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regula- 
tion therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be deliv- 
ered up on claim. of the party to whom such service or labor may bo due. 

Section 3, 

1. New states may beadmittedby the congress into this Union ; but no 
new state shall be formed or erected witliin the jurisdiction of any otlier 
state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states or 
parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states con- 
cerned, as well as of the congress. 

2. The congress sliall have power to dispose of, and make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the teiritory or other property belonging 
to the United States; and nothing in this constitution shall be so con- 
strued as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particu- 
lar state. 

Section 4. 

1. The United States shall gurantee to every state in this Union a 
republican form of government, and shall protect eacli of them against 
invasion ; and, on application of the legislature, or of the executive, (when 
the legislature can not be convened.) against domestic violence. 

ARTICLE V. 

1. The congress whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it 
necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution ; or, on applica- 
tion of the legislatures of two-thirds of the sevej-al states, shall call a con- 
vention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to 
all intents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the 
legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in 
three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be 
proposed by the congress ; provided that no amendment whicli may be 
made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in any 
manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of tlie first 
article ; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its 
equal suffrage in the senate. 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 21 

ARTICLE VI. 

1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adop- 
tion of this constitution, shall be valid against the United States under 
tliis constitution as under the confederation. 

2. This constitution, and the laws of the United States, which shall be 
made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, 
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the 
land ; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in 
the constitution or laws of any suite to the contrary notwithstanding. 

3. The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members 
of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both 
of the United States and the several states, shall be bound by oath or 
affirmation to support this constitution ; but no religious test shall ever 
be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the 
United States. 

ARTICLE VIL 

1. The ratification of the convention of nine states shall be sufficient 
for the establishment of this constitution between the states so ratifying 
the same. 

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present, 
the seventeentli day of September, in the year of our Lord one 
thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Indepen- 
dence of the United States of America, the twelfth. In witness 
whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
President and Deputy from Virginia. 



AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED 

STATES. 

ARTICLE I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof: or abridging the freedom of speech 
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to 
petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

ARTICLE n. 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, 
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. 



22 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

ARTICLE III. 
No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without 
the consent of the owner, nor in tirae of war, but in a manner to be 
prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE IV. 
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, liouses, papers and 
effects, against unreasonable searches and seiznres, shall not be violated ; 
and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath 
or affirmation, and particularly describing tlie place to be searched, and 
the persons or things to be seized. 

ARTICLE V. 
No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous 
crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in 
cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual 
service in time of war or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject 
for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall 
be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself, nor 
be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law ; nor 
shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation, 

ARTICLE VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy 
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein 
the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been 
previously ascertained by law ; and to be informed of the nature and 
cause of the accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; 
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to 
have the assistance of counsel for his defence. 

ARTICLE VII. 
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed 
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved ; and no fact 
tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United 
States, than according to the rules of the common law. 

ARTICLE VIII. 
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor 
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

ARTICLE IX. 
The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights, shall not be con- 
strued to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 



THE CONSTITUTION U. S. A. 23 



ARTICLE X. 



The powers Dot delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor 
prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to 
the people. 

ARTICLE XI. 
The judicial power of the LTnited States shall not be construed to extend 
to any suit in law or equity, cotninenced or prosecuted against one of the 
United States by citizens of anotlier state, or by citizens or subjects of 
any foreign state. 

ARTICLE XII. 

1. The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot 
for president and vice-president, one of whom, at least, shall not bean 
inhabitant of the same state wilh themselves. They shall name in their 
ballots the person voted for as president, and indistinct ballots, the person 
voted for as vice-president ; and they shall make distinct lists of all per- 
sons voted for as president, and of all persons voted for as vice-president, 
and of the number of votes for each ; which lists they shall sign and cer- 
tify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United 
States, directed to the president of the senate. The president of the senate 
shall, in the presence of the senate and house of representatives, open all 
the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having 
the greatest number of votes for president, shall be the president, if such 
number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if 
no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest 
numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as president, 
the house of representatatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the 
president. But, in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by 
states, the representation from eacli state having one vote ; a quorum for 
this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the 
states, and a majority of all the states sliall be necessary to a choice. And 
if the house of representatives shall not choose a president whenever the 
right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March 
next following, then the vice-president shall act as president, as in the 
case of the death or other constitutional disability of the president, 

2. The person having the greatest number of votes as vice-president 
shall be the vice-president, if such number be a majority of the whole 
number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from 
the two highest numbers on the list, the senate shall choose the vice-presi- 
dent. A quorum for the purpose sliall consist of two-thirds of the whole 
number of senators, and a majority of the whole number sjiall be neces- 
sary to a choice. 

3. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president, 
shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States. 



M THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

The fundamental principles of this compact are set forth in 
what has been usually termed the Preamble to the Constitu- 
tion, a very misleading expression, and which should be substi- 
suted by something indicating that it is the basis of the entire 
document, that it contains not only the corner stones and the 
foundation walls which are placed upon the crystal terra firma 
of changeless justice, but also the very columns upon which 
are supported its magnificent dome. Throughout the^entire 
extent of the aegis of this constitution, every proposition which 
finds expression in that enumeration of principles, is designed 
to be absolutely binding in its broadest application, while in the 
succeeding sections, each specification of a case of wrong, found 
too strongly entrenched in the interests of any faction of parties 
to this compact, must of necessity, like Shylock to his pound of 
flesh, be limited to the precise, literal, requirements of such 
words as describe those exceptions. 

And here will the reader permit us to add this suggestion, 
that for discerning the meaning of the Constitution, he consult 
that instrument itself instead of seeking authorities, which may 
mislead. And then, be sure to be governed by Common Sense, 
and the Fundamental Basis, that is, the Preamble. Never for- 
getting that all questions of doubt are to be determined by the 
expression of principles there stated. To illustrate, at this 
writing the Cainites whose marked sympathies for all traitors is 
a striking feature of the times, howl at ever}^ arrest of a sus- 
pected wretch, and charge the President with arbitrary disregard 
of the safe-guards of the Constitution. Having no sympath}^ 
for it themselves, they ignore the fact that war, and rebellion, 
with treason universal, provide the necessities, and the occa- 
sions, for which he is armed by the Constitution, and by it 
required to act with promptness, decision, and energy. 

Reference has already been made to that improvement of the 
views of the people which led them to ignore the folly of 
attempting to perpetuate the individual nationality of petty 
states, and which led them to transfer their patriotism from the 
separate states to that of a grander but common empire, and 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 25 

abnegate their pride of state in behalf of the brilliant glory of 
a magnificent nationality — thus ascending from the citizenship 
of a little state to that of an immense and powerful common- 
wealth — while retiring the states to the position of simple legis- 
lative and judicial municipalities, only retaining the represen- 
ative reality of their original independent statehood, in their 
equal individual representation in the senate of the central 
government, while relieving that governrnent of the details of 
local business through their continuance of their original forms 
of legislative and judicial proceedings, albeit these were now 
forever limited by the stable requirements of the two hundred 
and fifty specifications of the National Constitution. 

But Jefferson, with the aristocracy of Virginia, could not 
brook the idea that the Old Dominion, much the largest and 
most populous of the states, should thus lose that pre-eminence 
so gratifying to the pride of the slaveocratic character, imme- 
diately attacked the constitution, endeavoring to persuade the 
states to pass resolutions limiting the scope of the constitution 
in regard to this so complete obliteration of state nationality. 
But with all of his popularity, and his prestige as one of the 
authors of the Declaration of Independence, he succeeded only 
in persuading the legislatu*res of Virginia and Kentucky to 
endorse his scheme. Ah ! could Jefferson have comprehended 
that he was giving birth to a monster which, feeding upon the 
envenomed offal of slavery, should, during the lives of men 
born amid the roar of the revolutionary battles, attempt 
to extinguish those immortal principles his own hand had 
incorporated into the fundamental being of the nation, and thus 
strike the knell of Human Bights, he would have called on God 
to palsy that hand before it should have made the fatal record, 
even that God in view of whose justice he trembled when he 
considered the conflict slavery endangered. Thus were fanned 
into vigorous life the expiring embers of state rights pride, and 
from that life has culminated the fearful conflict which 
threatens the continued existence of this Promise of the Nations. 

In seeking for the origin of the political rights of a commu- 
3 



26 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

nity of people to a voice in their political government, the 
Fathers of the Republic had been led up to the consideration of 
the highest human necessities, and discovered that political 
rights accrued from personal rights ; that those, developing 
from the nature of things, were inalienable, and that, of this 
class, were the right to " life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness/' This element of personal rights, incorporated into the 
Constitution of the State of Massachusetts, had soon resulted 
in the abolition of the little of slavery the British rule had 
permitted to develop within her borders, and the remainder 
of the Puritanic States, one by one, followed the virtuous 
example. But beyond the Puritanicinfluence, the Slaveocratic 
power was too strong for the principles of justice, and the prop- 
osition that might makes right, still continued to govern the 
development of Southern society. 

And the Slaveocracy, with that shrewdness which ever char- 
acterizes the cunning of inordinate ambition, in the absence of 
moral restraint, apprehensive of the still formidable influence 
of the advocates of emancipation, and annoyed by the presence 
of the free colored population, developed that splendid delusion, 
the African Colonization Scheme, by which at one throw the 
sympathy for the enslaved blacks was transferred to the people 
of a distant continent, the free negroes removed from close 
proximity to the slave, and, most deplorable of all, the way 
for a return attack upon slavery, hedged most thoroughl}^ by 
the assiduous culture of negro hate. 

The Founders of the Constitution, mindful of the fundamen- 
tal principles involved in the struggle for freedom from political 
tyranny, appreciating the origin of those principles in the per- 
sonal rights of the being, because of his human nature, estab- 
lished those rights as the keystone of the edifice, making the 
most Important object of the National Compact to consist in 
securing the blessings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity. 
Not able to sweep slavery from existence, they were yet so 
hopeful of its speedy abrogation, as to use special care, that 
while the fact of its existence could not be ignored, necessary 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 27 

reference to its hateful name, should be in terms that need not 
recall its sad memory, after it should have ceased to disgrace 
the Republic. 

Their understanding of this element of the Constitution, was 
early illustrated by the new government, in, the immediate 
passage of the ordinance prohibiting slavery in all the territory 
then belonging to the nation, and which had been ceded to it 
by the States claiming the domain of that country between the 
Ohio, the Lakes and the Mississippi. 

In the consideration of this subject, it is all important to 
appreciate the dijGference between what existed in the States 
prior to the formation of the Federal Government^ and what 
may he created, subject to that Government. 

Thus, while laws in favoi\»of slavery, existing at the time of 
the adoption of the National Constitution, could not be abro- 
gated by the National Grovernment, because the states having 
such an institution, were accepted as members of the Union 
without being required to demolish the same — no laws produ- 
cing, or legalizing slavery in any state in the Union, could 
become constitutional, because interdicted by the basilar prin- 
ciples of that instrument, and have not been provided for by any 
specification releasing such a proposition from the force of that 
interdiction. The same is true of a territory of the United 
States — and of the rebellious states whose former laws have 
been taken without the range of former comity. 

As the slaves became numerous in the Southern States, the 
natural eifects of its curse began to exert their baneful influ- 
ences, producing moral and social blight upon each community 
where its presence came. The slave plantations being large, 
and occupying the best portions of the soil, the non-slavehold- 
ing population were so much separated as to preclude the 
possible existence of the District School System, which has been 
to the North the greatest of her blessings ; so that class of the 
population remained ignorant, and tended to a degradation 
which challenged the contempt of the slaveholders and the scorn 
of the slaves. 



28 THE ISSUES OP THE HOUR. 

The planters mostly educated their white children at the 
North, or employed Northern teachers at home, but the prin- 
ciple associations of their families were with their slaves, who 
were educated to only lie, and pilfer, and accomplish the least 
possible amount by their forced labor. Thus, all that makes 
society at the North delightful, and home a little paradise, is 
absent from the slave country, occasioning the absence from the 
South of a large portion of its families, who for blessings not 
possible there, migrated north of the Ohio. And foreign emi- 
grants, detesting slavery, have flocked to the Free States, so that 
the South, which in the time of the Revolution, possessed twice 
the population of the North, has come to exhibit but two-fifths 
their present number. And in those qualities which go to make 
up the elements of true nobility of** character, the difference in 
favor of the North is beyond all computation. 

Approximate estimates of the pecuniary detriment occasioned 
to the country by slavery during the last few years, may be 
rendered sufficiently correct to exhibit its disastrous pecuniary 
retributions. At the North, out of every family of five persons, 
at least three of them are laborers at some kind of productive 
avocation, and earn between them two dollars per day, during 
three hundred days each year. Now, labor at the South is as 
productive as at the North, so that of the four millions of slaves, 
and say six millions of poor whites, whom slavery renders indo- 
lent and inefficient — ten millions in all — leaving out two millions 
as offset by a like number at the North, the ten millions ought 
to produce four millions per day, which would be for the year, 
of three hundred days, twelve hundred millions. 

The united testimony of all parties acquainted with slave 
labor, assures that they do not accomplish half as much as free 
laborers. And the poor whites and slaveholders do as near to 
nothing as possible. But allow that poor whites and slaves 
produce half as much as the same number of Northern people 
— a most liberal allowance — and from this item we discover an 
annual loss of six hundred millions each year, as the direct 
effect of the existence of slavery. 

Then these two millions of families of slaves and poor whites, 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 29 

living ill hovels and shanties, without gardens, orchards, shops 
and barns, which at the North are worth to each family not less 
than two hundred dollars per year more than those of the slaves 
and the poor whites of the South are worth to them, brings 
in this item a loss to the South, of comforts, to the amount of 
four hundred millions. Thus, these two items, which closer 
scrutinizing, will increase instead of diminishing, exhibit pecu- 
niary loss of a thousand millions per year, of which slavery robs 
its victims, and which has been one of the most irritating and 
efficient causes of the intense hatred the South has cherished 
against the North. It were easy for them to contrast their 
country with the superiority of the North in its increase of 
wealth and power, but they could only imagine that through 
the tariff on foreign importations, the North must have rob- 
bed them of the earnings of their unpaid slaves. This was the 
immediate plea for the nullification project thirty years since, 
although that was the result of the old lust of power and State 
pride of the Slaveocracy. 

Illustrated by the facts with which this essay opens, it would 
seem that the Slaveocracy foiled in their attempts at nullifica- 
tion, through lack of preparation, at once set about the work in 
earnest, took time to make their arrangements, and determined 
to accomplish their purpose, to either subvert the Grovernment 
of the Union, or break it into fragments. 

To this end they began to establish that slavery was a divine 
institution, and consequently ought to become universal and 
perpetual. And set about driving from their country all their 
Northern teachers who would not do homage to this Cainite 
Gilded Calf — prohibited discussion of the subject, except on 
one side, and systemized the idea of orders of titled nobility, to 
be established when they should have " Set aside the forms of 
Republicanism." 

The Democratic party, ever being their efficient ally, led 
them to believe the North, then asleep upon the subject of per- 
sonal rights, could with the assistance of that party be made an 
easy prey, and the slaveocracy settled into a firm confidence 



30 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

that they could easily speak their new despotism into full 
fledged life. The Democratic party, the ally of slavery — that 
most intense concentration of despotism ! Ah, how many 
members of the Democratic party open their eyes in amazement 
at the discovery, that their party, which they had ever believed 
to embody all the political virtue of the country • that this 
party they had worshipped as the very god of freedom, did really 
exist as the powerful right hand of the doubly distilled essence 
of all despotisms ! To a casual observer it certainly is one of 
those astounding truths which ever seem stranger than any 
fiction. But the aspect of the case is wonderfully different 
when viewed in relation to the history of the origin of the 
party, its name, and the principles involved in its development. 

The vSlaveocracy, that is, Cainites of the Galling Chains, 
chagrined by the defeat of their darling idea of State Suprem- 
acy, and rendered desperate by the ftiilure of the State llights 
resolutions in the State Legislatures, set about the task of ac- 
quiring supremacy in the Central Government. Republican 
liberty was the ruling idea at the time — its votaries wer« cleans- 
ing the Government of the stains, and the curse of slavery. 
Some effective power must be evoked for the protection of the 
Slaveocracy, or the gods they worshipped, would be torn from 
their despotic grasp, to return to them no more. Could they 
but steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. they might 
yet hope to heal their lacerated pride, and save their gods. 

There ever have been in human society three great classes of 
people, and those classes will ever continue. The first consists 
of such as always consider the good of all members of com- 
munity, as a part of the elements which determine their 
actions, such being the honest worshippers of righteousness, rep- 
resented by the character of Abel, that is, La Belle, the Beau- 
tiful, or the Lovely. The second class is of those whose lead- 
ing aim is self-aggrandizement, at the expense of any other 
interest which may seem to be in the way of their success — 
typified in Cain, and ever seeking to destroy the Abel of 
society, and ever exclaiming, " Am I my brother's keeper ?" 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 31 

The third and largest chiss constitute and comprise all those 
who, less intensely virtuous than the first, and less politically 
ambitious than th« second, are usually content with superficial 
or one-sided views of political affairs, and free to take the side 
which most directly appeals to their prejudices, their feelings, 
the most simply and directly, and to the degree of intellectual 
acumen, they are usually qualified to bestow upon such sub- 
jects. With such elements before them, the Cainite State 
Supremacy clique, estimated that could they by any means 
appeal to the motive powers of this third class of society, their 
object might be successfully attained. Their own principles 
had been proved to be universally obnoxious to the great 
majority of the American people — the supremacy of the citizen 
as against administrators of government — was the ruling idea. 
By starting a political party, which, while it could be directed 
by the Cainites, should, through its ostensible motives, appeal 
to the unsophisticated, and hence unsuspecting masses, the 
problem of subverting a Republican Grovernment by means of 
its democratic elements, might be rendered a practical fact. 
Democracy, the government of a small community by the 
assemblage and voice of all of its citizens, a temporary incon- 
gruity, furnished the most popular cognomen, by which the 
votaries of free government had been known. By adopting 
this word as the delusive badge of their party, the fraud would 
be complete, and the lovers of Republican liberty, marshalled 
against the temple of their political salvation. It did not avail 
that the Constitution of the United States already embodied all 
the democratic elements that could by any possibility become 
useful, and none l>ut these Cainites of the Gralling Chains 
desired it to become less so. One party being called the Demo- 
cratic Party, created the inference that all who opposed this 
party were opposed to the democratic principles of the Consti- 
tution, and as a matter of course, when led by the popular 
name of Jefferson, this new ally of despots carried everything 
before it. 

Coming to be understood by the lower strata of society, to 



32 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

signify opposition to the strictness of Puritanic morals, it ap- 
pealed to the licentious, the drunken and the lightfingered. It 
has ever exhibited in its prints a corresponding grossness of 
style and quality of language, which has been in marked con- 
trast to the political literature of the Opposition. Never per- 
mitting to pass unappropriated an opportunity to stab Puri- 
tanism, its alacrity in the service of its Cainite leaders has 
never faltered from doing their most dirty work. Thus, while 
it were well to purchase Florida of Spain, and Louisiana of 
France, that slavery might have more room for the extension 
of its power, it could refuse to capture Canada, when all things 
conspired to render that event the most natural, and the most 
proper thing that could be done. And did this through the 
disgraceful order for Hull to surrender his entire army to an 
inferior force, and the recall of Harrison, when having defeated 
the British and Tecumseh, the enemy had no further power to 
check his victorious legion. Not strong enough to devote the 
entire Missouri territory to slavery, contrary to the fundamen- 
tal principles of the Constitution, it at first secured half of it 
to this Cainite Grourmand Cyclops, and then, when this part had 
become occupied, it cooly tramples under foot the considerations 
of the compromise, and says to the Slaveocrac3^ take possession. 
The Cyclops, dissatisfied with the guaranties of the Constitu- 
tion, respecting the return of fugitives from justice, this ally 
assists them to the most infamous code for which the world ever 
had occasion to blush — in the specifications of the odious Fugi- 
tive Slave Law of '48 — a law which outrages the essen- 
tial forms of virtue, and disregards the plainest rights of 
citizenship. And this, under the false plea of the requirements 
of that Constitution, whose provisions it so signally disregards. 
This subject needs a word of exposition. By reference to 
the constitution, it will be seen that there is a requirement 
that " the States shall not pass laws prohibiting the rendi- 
tion of fugitives from service, or labor, but that such parties 
shall be returned to the persons to whom such service or labor 
may be due," But it will not be found in the Constitution 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 33 

that this relates to slaves at all — for legally a slave cannot 
owe anything — nor can his service be due to any one. 

It is claimed that it was meant to apply to slaves. Let 
it be borne in mind that those making this claim, are strict con- 
structionists. They would bind all by the letter of the Consti- 
tution. Their own interpretation then cuts off such applica- 
tion. 

To adopt a more liberal position, and admit that the passage 
was meant to apply to slaves held by legal force, will not assist 
the claim, for the reason given by the slaveocracy who, in '48 
would not accept of trial by jury, because the Slave States 
had no laws by which the unnatural condition was legalized; 
hence, by their own showing the clause does not apply to 
slaves, since this specification is in another clause limited to 
claims of debt sanctioned by law. 

But if one more subterfuge be tried, and it is asserted that 
the States have since passed laws legalizing slavery, we have 
only to reply that all such legislation is absolutely unconstitu- 
tional, as being counter to every fundamental principle of that 
instrument. 

If it is still claimed that it ought to be applied to slaves, 
out of comity to Cyclops, it is sufiicient to reply that too long 
has the nation been cursed by the practice of this great wrong 
from comity to Cainite wretches who return the compliment by 
most treacherous schemes for the destruction of the nation, and 
the enslavement of ourselves. 

But Cyclops, not content with the liberal purchase of non-slave 
territory for the spread of the infernal institution of savageism 
— the enactment of the most atrocious laws for its safeguard — 
the obliteration of every thing pertaining to republican freedom 
from the literature of the country, and the attempt of the north- 
ern Cainites, to follow the southern example of the oblitera- 
tion of freedom of discussion of the character of slavery — 
that being too hellish to bear exposure; the slaveocracy, not 
content with all this, and much more, have never ceased to war 
directly upon the industry of the north, because they could not 



34 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

endure that necessity of things, that a people, free from the 
social curse of slavery, and the crushing weight of aristocratic 
dominance, must flourish as the paradise of earth, and the wa- 
tered of heaven. 

Did northern commerce prosper, war must be evoked to 
destroy the commerce. Did the people, driven from commerce 
and under the protection of the tariff taxes necessitated by the 
national debt, engage in manufactures, then the tariff must be 
revised, and the factories stand idle. Did the country with a 
stable national currency still grow apace, the currency must be 
destroyed till all business is crushed as by a desolating tornado ; 
and the sapient instrumentality by which the business of the 
country has been •' changed these ten times," has of course 
never failed to be that potent ally of despotism, the Democratic 
party. The cost to the country of all this war upon the indus- 
try of the north, man cannot number — ^but one element may 
be introduced as an illustration of the whole. It is drawn from 
the subject which formed the ostensible complaint of the seces- 
sionists, in the attempt of disruption under the name of nulli- 
fication. Jackson, being a Republican Democrat, instead of a 
Cainite, and understanding the thing in its true light, crushed 
the scheme in its germ, but could not annihilate its spirit. 
He cautioned the country that it would make a renewed 
attempt to destroy the Republic; and that its next pretext 
would the subject of slavery. The final extinction of the na- 
tional debt furnished an opportunity — and as usual the people 
were plied with sophisms upon the subject of free trade, and 
the unrighteousness of tariff taxation, and the protective tariff" 
was destroyed. 

The people being cajoled into acquiescence, mostly by the 
false idea that a protective tariff, by increasing the cost of the 
raw material, made living more expensive ; and that this 
increase of cost of material, enabled the foreign competitor, 
even under high duties, to undersell, and thus break down our 
own manufactures. 

Of course, during a change of the industry of the country, 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 35 

the price of some elements of production will increase to a 
greater extent than the tariff increases the price of the foreign 
article. But all such results would cease, so soon as the busi- 
ness of producing should have had time to develop a supply 
commensurate to the demand. But the real necessity for a 
protective tariff arises from the credit mode of doing business, 
which enables the foreigner with his immense capital, and low 
rate of interest, to give longer time than is possible to the Amer- 
ican manufacturer ; and thus make sales to the credit pur- 
chaser, who pays him a higher price, in consideration of the 
greater length of time for making his returns. But this com- 
paratively trifling difference of price between the foreigner and 
the home manufacturer, might be disregarded, and our people 
continue to exchange the raw material for the foreign manufac- 
ture, were it not for this important fact, that it costs us more 
than twice as imicJi to pay for lahor done abroad^ as it does to 
pay for the same lahor done at home. And then, by this de- 
parture from the changeless laws of nature, in the requirement 
to make the payment, in only a few of the articles the country 
is adapted to produce ; and these the most limited in range of 
soil, and climate, and the most expensive to develop, at least half 
the hands, and other sources of production, which should be 
engaged, and would be performing this labor, were it all done 
here, are thus compelled to remain idle. 

Under this low revenue tariff during the last decade of years, 
we have been importing at the rate of a million a day, that is, 
three hundred and sixty millions of dollars per year. Now not 
less than two hundred millions of this, ought to be produced at 
home. Because, first, all of the machinery and hands, which 
would be required to do this work, are thus compelled to remain 
idle at a cost to the country of just that two hundred millions^ 
To which must be added the transportation of the goods and 
their pay, the consequent loss of time and other losses, and the 
profit of the manufacturers — all of which cannot be estimated 
at less than fifty millions more. An estimate of the difference 
between the cost of production of such articles as bear trans- 



36 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

shipment, will also show that while the production of all such 
articles costs fully the market price for them, most of the other 
articles of family consumption, such as vegetables, milk, fuel, 
rent, etc., on which there would be netted more than the above 
two hundred and fifty millions, is all lost, so that in this item of 
robbery by slavery, the country has lost five hundred millions a 
year. 

There is one more pecuniary item, good for all times, as 
against domestic despotism. In the Slave States are not less 
than five hundred thousand square miles of land, which, had 
slavery been abolished twenty years since, would have annually 
increased in value, as indicated by the improvement in the free 
States, to the amount of one dollar per acre more than it has 
now done, allowing forty acres of waste land from each square 
mile, and we have here a loss of six hundred dollars per year, 
on each square mile ; and which on five hundred thousand 
square miles would amount to the sum of three hundred mil- 
lions. 

And to this we may add, for village, city, and other improve- 
ments, not less than two hundred millions per year, making 
together the sum of five hundred millions a year, of loss from 
the prevention of the increase in the value of real estate. To 
which add the five hundred millions of loss occasioned by sla- 
very's destruction of the protective tariff". 

The four hundred millions lost to the South in the form of 
the comforts of home. 

And the six hundred millions lost through the indolence gen- 
erated at the South by the conditions of slavery. Thus we 
have, by slavery, a grand total loss, in pecuniary value, of the 
enormous sum annually of two thousand millions of dollars. A 
sum greater than the annual cost for both parties in this death 
struggle for the mastery, between Republican Civilization and. 
Slaveocratic Desolation. An annual sum much greater than 
was ever claimed to be the market value of the entire slave 
population. Exhibiting subjection to a despotism more expen- 
sive, more intolerent, more destructive of every element of hap- 
piness than has been any, which ever elsewhere existed. 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 37 

One more charge against the Cainite conspiracy of oligar- 
chal despots, in which was involved the Democratic party, 
as it stood prior to the campaign of eighteen hundred and sixty. 

Soon after the suppression of the nullification scheme occur- 
red the first overt attack of the slaveocracy under their revised 
plan. This was commenced by the imprisonment of William 
[iloyd Crarrison in Baltimore for the crime of exposing certain 
parties engaged in the nefarious slave trade from Africa, an 
atrocity outlawed by all nations. He raised the cry of alarm, 
but the mariners of the ship of State, seduced by the Cainite 
Gairish Circe, had sailed within range of the enchanting melo- 
dies of the Syrens of the Cainite Grourmand Cyclops, and the 
crew, spell-bound, and lulled to a destructive slumber, exhibited 
unmistakable signs of the death torpor from which nought less 
than the bolts of heaven's thunder eould, by any possibility, 
arouse them, and instead of the expected aye — aye — sir — from 
the Puritanic mariners, the watchmen at mast-head turned a 
deaf ear. and in Boston a mob of " respectable gentlemen" 
destroyed his printing ofEce, hunted him as a wild beast, and 
finally led him in triumph through the streets, with a halter 
about his nock, as an ovation to the Circe by whom they had 
been enchanted. 

Thus was opened the Puritanic war in self-defence against the 
tyranny of slavery. Political parties were not then divided 
strictly upon the slave question, but from that time the Cain- 
ism from all parties has been seeking its affinities, till, in the 
campaign of '56^ its entire strength was consolidated in the 
Democratic party. And it then comprised all of the national 
siaveocratic sympathy of the country, besides at least an equal 
number of good honest citizetis, who are Republicans by na- 
ture ; but who, by birth, training, or other incidental causes, 
had not discovered that the Cainite Democratic party was not 
their proper political home. 

This party, in both its collective capacity and the individual 
influence of its members, never failed to make use of every 
opportunity to oppose and outrage those who endeavored 
4: 



38 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 



enlighten the nation upon the terrible, calamities developing. 
and perfecting from slavery. 

Through the aid thus rendered by the Cainites of the north, 
the slaveocracy were led to the belief that, instead of being 
obliged to abolish slavery, as they certainly would have been 
obliged to do, but for this assistance from the north, they would 
be enabled to perpetuate the wretched institution at the south. 
and to ultimately bring the entire nation under its sway. 

Hence the perfecting of their ideas of aggrandizement and 
their plans for the subversion of Democratic Republicanism, with 
the establishment of political despotism upon the basis of slav- 
ery, while each slaveholder should become a titled noble, and all 
other persons be disfranchised and ultimately enslaved. 

That such were their dreams by night, and their contempla- 
tions by day, is corroborated by the direct and explicit state- 
ments of their leading men, and every element of information 
that for years has been evolved from the subject. 

Meanwhile, the Cainites at the South, who had since the days 
of Aaron Burr, continued to cherish the visions of a great slave 
empire, counting upon this apathetic condition of Puritania, 
and without due preparation, opened the ball in the form of nul- 
lification at Charleston, South Carolina. But the strength of 
their natural allies being at that time deposited in the loins of 
Old Hickory, one single gleam of his eye of fire, with the char- 
acteristic expression, " By the eternal — John C. Calhoun, if 
there be one drop of blood shed at Charleston, I will hang you," 
knocked the scheme into pi, in just the time required for the 
Vice-President to send his orders to Charleston to "stop all 
proceedings, because Jackson will hang me if a drop of blood 
be shed.'' But the time only, and not the project, was 
abandoned. Profiting by experience, they at once commenced 
to secretly organize for the final issue. And emboldened by 
the success of their Northern allies in their attacks upon Grar- 
rison, and the few coadjutors who enlisted in his support, their 
plan was expanded, so as to include the entire nationality. 

Thus J after having together struggled through the war ol' 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 39 

Political Rights, the Slaveocracy eombiued for the subversion 
of all Human Rights, while the few still wakeful Puritans, in 
self-defense, associated for the overthrow of slavery, as the only 
salvation of the country, and the world. But with this charac- 
teristic difference, that while the latter were perfectly out- 
spoken, the former obscured their entire movements under the 
shroud of the most rigid of all secret conclaves. 

Thus, in A. D. eighteen fifty, they had all things satisfactory 
to their seeming, and were '' only waiting a convenient opportu- 
nity for setting aside the forms of Republicanism." The Iron 

President Taylor had been dis (?) of, and the succeeding 

Vice, had apostatized to the Cainite conspirators' — the candidate 
of the faithful, succeeded in the next election — and apparently 
but one more cycle of the political machine, was required for 
the complete subversion of all that remained in the legacy of 
the Puritans. 

All this while the Cainites, as a part of their programme, 
kept up a continual howl about the violation of the compro- 
mises and the guaranties of the Constitution, thus imitating the 
(xairnish Circe, who ever drove away her virtuous neighbor, by 
charging her with doing what herself designed to accomplish, 
and applying to her the name- of her own licentious character. 
Meanwhile, it may be interesting to take a passing review of 
the facts on this point, before entering upon the next scene 
in the drama. 

The compromises of the Constitution, on the subject of 
Slavery, are, the continuation of the African Slave Trade, till the 
year eighteen hundred and eight; and the making of five slaves 
count equal to three free persons, for the representation in 
Congress, and the vote for Presidental Electors. 

It has been alleged that the Constitution protected the Slave 
States against National legislation for the extinction of slavery, 
and that guaranty for the return of fugitives from owed ser- 
vice, included slaves; but there is a perfect absence from the 
Constitution of any language which can be thus applied. But 
the North, ever generous to a fault in their courtesy towards 



40 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

the South, have acted upon that allegation, and have even gone 
so far as to repeal the Personal Liberty Laws, found necessary 
for the protection of our citizens against the infamous fugitive 
code of '48. And we challenge the entire Cainite Grib- 
bering Crew, to furnish the first case of trespass against the 
provisions of the Constitution relating to this subject. 

But on the other side, the Fugitive Slave Code of seventeen 
ninety-three, was unconstitutional, in its abrogation of the trial 
by jury, where life and liberty were at stake, by returning 
slaves to States which had no legalized slavery, and as we 
claim, by giving up men to slavery when there was no require- 
ment for such anti-constitutional proceeding in the Constitu- 
tion. 

The legalizing of Slavery in most of the Slave States since 
the adoption of the Constitution, is unconstitutional. 

The legalizing of Slavery in any Territory in which the 
treaty for the acquisition of such Territory did not require its 
toleration, is unconstitutional. 

The passage of laws by several of the Slave States prohibit- 
ing the emancipation of slaves, unless they be transported 
from the State, or bonds given for their support, is unconstitu- 
tional. 

The passage of laws, and the establishment of usuages, which 
have prohibited the free discussion of the subject, is unconstitu- 
tional. 

The passage of laws, and the establishment of usuages, by 
which the residence of citizens holding anti-slavery principles, 
has been interdicted in many of the Slave States, is unconstitu- 
tional. 

The passage of the Missouri Compromise Act, by which large 
Territories and States were given up to slavery, was unconstitu- 
tional. 

The Fugitive Slave Bill of eighteen forty-eight, by denial of 
jury trial, and by making the citizens of the North tenders to 
slaveholders' whelps, is unconstitutional. 

The abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, by which the 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 41 

entire territories of the LTnited States were opened to vslavery, 
is unconstitutional. 

The decision of the Court of the United States that colored 
persons have no rights a white man is bound to respect, is un- 
constitutional. 

The Cainite greedy clutching mobs all over the North for the 
destruction of Abolitionists, with the freedom of speech and 
the press, have all been unconstitutional. 

The denial to colored citizens of the rights of the elective 
franchise, is unconstitutional. 

And the closing of schools and the avenues to wealth, honor 
and emoluments to the colored citizens, is unconstitutional. 

Thus, with the violations of the Constitution all upon the 
side of the Cainite Grreedy Cyclops, who never entered into a 
compact but to break it, and the maintenance of comity all on 
the other side, this concentrated essence of despotism expected 
an easy prey of the entire North, the first element of which 
absorption, was the opening of all the Territories to the irrup- 
tion of slavery. 

But the obsequies of the fugitive slave code of '4H 
were too abject for the endurance of such descendants of the 
Puritans, as had not yet forgotten the exalted bequest of their 
ancestry, and the disturbance produced by their opposition to 
the fines and imprisonments imposed by that odious unconstitu- 
tional act, startled many of the sleeping Northerners froni 
their delusive dreams. 

The virgin b(jsom of Kansas reposed beautifully invit- 
ing, the cynosure of all eyes, admired by the liberty-loving, but 
most ardently coveted by the destroying Medusa. Votes in the 
Convention for the organization of the Territorial Government 
were to decide the future destiny of the incipient State. The 
vigilant of both parties exerted themselves to the utmost to 
secure the majority in the Convention. — the Northerners by 
bonafide settlers. The Southerners, failing in this, according to 
their traditional habit, resorted to every possible subterfuge to 
intercept or defeat the efforts of that triumphant tide which 



42 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

was setting into the imperilled land. Every obstacle was in- 
terposed to prevent the "Hated Yankees" from traversing the 
natural route through Missouri — even to the laughable employ- 
ment of a " Shibboleth," in the form of a magnificent cow, 
there being a degree of difference in the pronunciation of 
the word hy the citizens of the different sections of the 
country. 8t. Joseph, Mo., was the most direct line of travel, 
and it was twenty-five miles to the next ferry down the river. 
So the cow was kept at St. Josephs, and every traveller was re- 
quired to pronounce the name of the animal. If they said Kaow. 
then it was all right, and he was passed over. But if he spoke 
it Keow, he was an Abolitionist, and turned back. 

Lest this item should be received as a myth, the writer will 
add that he has it from the family with whom his home has 
been during the last three years, and who during several weeks 
boarded with the people who had then possession of that same 
cow, and knew her history, having obtained her from the 
persons who had kept her for that purpose. This fact illus- 
trates the littleness to which the Cainites resorted for the 
accomplishment of their darling project of the extension of 
slavery. 

But of a different character were the raids of Border Ruffians 
from Missouri, who entered the Territory armed ; and pillaged. 
burned and murdered such as they considered obnoxious. The 
peaceful citizens appealed to the National Government for pro- 
tection, and National dragoons were sent to them, but only to 
disarm the Republicans, who having despaired of succor from 
the Cainite Administration, had begun to provide for self- 
protection. And all parts of the South sent in guerrillas at the 
time of the Territorial election, to both vote unlawfully and to 
keep Republicans from the polls. 

The settlers of Kansas being from all parts of the country. 
the recital of the wrongs inflicted by the Cainite clan aroused 
the descendants of the Puritans to an appreciation of the dan- 
ger looming above the Southwestern horizon, and marshalled 
them in solid phalanx to the rescue of the beleaguered people of 
freedom. 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR 43 

Selectiiag for tlieir standard bearer the intrepid Fremont, 
wliose sagacity and energy had secured to us the Golden Gate- 
way to the Pacific, and then preserved it from slavery's blight- 
ing curse ; heavy majorities for the preservation of the behests 
of the Constitution, perfectly mapped Puritania, that portion 
of the continent to which the meeting-house, the school-house, 
the newspaper, and the lyceum. had transmitted the great lead- 
ing principles of the original Puritans. While in the Free 
States, those portions which had been settled by such as to es- 
cape the mildew of slavery, had migrated North, but yet re- 
tained their former prejudices and sympathies ; the cities 
entangled by commercial relations with the South, and the new 
States and Territories, where government patronage had mould- 
ed the jDolitics, all exhibited large majorities for the Cainite 
Gilded Candidate, while no Republican development was permit- 
ted in the Slave States. With the President, Vice-President 
and both Houses of Congress, it would superficially seem that 
the Gourmand Cyclops should have been very self-compla- 
cent over his victory. But this first campaign of Republicanism 
arrayed against the monster for self-protection, had shivered 
his delusive dream of universal empire. Puritania could not 
be enslaved nor seduced to grace his triumphal march. The 
avalanche of Northerners upon tlie Territories could never be 
countervoted — soon Republicanism would control the National 
Government, and the Cainite domination would be at an end. 

Giving up the Free States, as past hope of subversion, 
Cyclops must needs make use of that present auspicious moment 
for securing the South to slavery and political absolutism. It 
might become impossible to elect another so willing cats-paw 
as the Old Buck, the symbol of change. Knavish Greedy 
Cainites were placed at the heads of the Departments; the 
Government was run into the greatest degree of insolvency ; 
the arms and munitions of war were deposited in the Slave 
States, at such points as would be most convenient -, the war 
vessels were dismantled in the Southern ship-yards, or dispers- 
ed in the most distant seas ; and the preparatory heresy of 
non-coercion of States was most extensively ventilated. 



44 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 



But one thino; more remained to be done. It were still 



im- 



possible to secure the cooperation of the masses of the citizens 
of the Slave States, unless they could be cajoled into the idea 
that the North were such trespassers as to require armed resist- 
ance to their invasion of the rights of the South in disregard of 
the Constitution. Their ordinary mode of making lies and 
swearing to their truth, always sufficient for an ephemeral 
election campaign, would too soon, by its transparency, expose 
the hollowness of the trick ; hence there must be some practi- 
cal fact, capable of being applied like the proverb : ■' Spoil the 
flax and lay it to the hens;" and this too, after the common 
Cainite pattern. More than this must be done. Without an 
interference of the most effectual character. (Jyclops' candidate 
for the next Presidential campaign would inevitably be elected, 
and supported by a majority in the Senate, and such conditions 
would afford no room for a justifying argument. Nothing short 
of the election of the Republican candidate, could be depended 
upon for the basis of a sufficient lie to excuse the contem- 
plated secession of the Slave States. For this purpose the 
Cainite party must be rent in fragments. Their National Con- 
vention at Charleston, South Carolina, held commission to 
execute this behest of Cyclops. Douglas, who had bowed and 
scraped, and fawned, and knelt, and bellied, and paddled in the 
mire, gulped down the Missouri Compromise and Squatter 
Sovereignty into the Territories. Douglas, the Little Griant of 
all Democrats, was, with all the faithful of the North, cast 
overboard with as little ceremony and less compunction than 
was the ancient Jonah. The scheme is complete ; the game 
works to perfection. Of course the Northern Democrats nomi- 
nate Douglas. Of course the Secesh nominate a Knavish Gar- 
rulous Cainite of the most intense degree. And then to make 
certainty doubly sure, lest by some mishap Douglas should 
succeed, put upon the course an Old Line Whig, to catch all 
the Silver Grays, who being too Anti-Republican to go for 
Lincoln, might otherwise vote for the Little Giant. The result 
was gloriously beautiful. The Republican President is declared 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 45 

elected by every vote from the Free States in the Electoral 
College, except the Railroad half of the delegation from New 
Jersey. 

To such perfection did this scheme of Cyclops work, that 
even in California, where the Republicans were scarce, the 
votes were so divided among the four candidates that the 
Republican ticket was elected, though receiving less than one- 
third of the votes polled. Thus, by a great effort, and a rare 
combination of cunning, Cyclops succeeded in obtaining the 
election of a Republican President and Vice-President, opening 
the way for the preparation of the Southern population, a task 
not difficult for those who had so long practised the principle 
established by Amos Kendall, when in the Executive Cabinet, 
••To meet the statements of the Opposition with lies, because, 
it is easier to publish half a dozen lies, than to counteract one 
truth;" and still easier South, where the Opposition might not 
be heard. 

Soon as arrangements could be completed, Cyclops' conven- 
tion to develop a Constitution for the Slave Confederacy met, and 
according to a prediction written in '52, " Seven States 
went down together." that is, combined in rebellion against the 
government of the United States. Slavery was made the cor- 
ner-stone of the Confederacy, but as the disfranchisement of 
the non-slaveholding whites was not included, as being too great 
a stretch for present possibility, one of the leading Cainites of 
South Carolina wrote to the Convention, strenuously urging the 
importance of cutting off this Democratic element, because that, 
as it was their object to establish an oligarchy of slaveholders, 
and reduce all '' poor whites" to the level of serfs, another war 
for their purpose would be required. This clearly exhibited the 
character of the movement, but which the more shrewd of 
the conspirators possessed sufficient sagacity to keep from view, 
till the services of that same class, so essential for the war of 
the rebellion, should cease to be necessary. 

The bulk of the army had been stationed at the greatest pos- 
sible distance from the future scenes of their usefulness, and as 



46 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

far as possible, placed under Secesli commanders. The forts 
in the Slave kStates were left without sufficient garrisons to care 
for the property, while the Capitol of the Nation was rendered 
almost perfectly defenceless. Buchanan and his Cabinet were 
all Cyclops could desire, until the Congress began to arouse 
from its fancied security, and obtained the change of some of 
the Secretaries. 

Cainites' not in the profoundest secrets of Cyclops, made 
several attempts to assassinate the President elect, while en 
route for the Capitol, and after the inauguration the Lieuten- 
ant-General's sympathies were so much in the interest of the 
rebels to permit him to order the proper military movements, 
and the President, too free from guile to suspect others, confid- 
ed too much in the integrity of dangerous sycophants. 

"Whom the Grods will destroy, they first make mad," and 
the charming facility with which every scheme of the Secesh 
appeared to succeed, deluded the wretches into the notion that 
they were the real favorites of heaven, with whom the long- 
promised millennial glories were soon to open. 

But to entrap the border States was a difficult task — some- 
thing of a thrilling and decisive character was needed to stim- 
ulate the timid, and intensify the wavering; the little apol- 
ogy of a garrison in Fort Sumpter, now surrounded by rebel 
batteries, ofi"ered a fine quarry for the chivalry of the south ; 
the little command would be starved out in three days, but 
the opportunity was too good to be lost. 

The last link in the programme was forged ; the destinies of 
the slaveocracy were decided by the capture of the fort ; their 
fortunes were now irrevocably blended ; the severance was es- 
tablished ; the chain of necessity was ready for binding togeth- 
er the fractions of Cyclops' dominions. But the booming 
roar of that terrific cannonade like the portentous mutter- 
ing of a coming earthquake, rolled northward beyond the 
borders of Secessia, and reverberated through the mountains 
and over the plains of all Puritania. The memory of Major 
Anderson and his intrepid command became enshrined in the 



thp: issues of the hour. 47 

hearts of all defenders of liberty, where history will embalm 
them forever. The nightmare enchantment was broken by this 
sudden awakening of the slumbering millions 3 the aroused fury 
of the despoiled, annihilates the trammels, and the boundaries 
of political parties, and the doom of Cyclops is sealed. 

But why — why did not the Providence of our past behests, 
and our future hopes, rescue the favored people from this dire 
calamity '/ The answer is simple, its import instructive. 

America had compromised away her birthright for a pet 
riorgon, refusing to strangle the monster, even, while in a death 
struggle for her own existence. The strangest spectacle the 
world ever yet exhibited, is this of a people for two terrible 
years, conducting the most sanguine of wars, for self-protection 
against the most unmitigated system of evil, possible to trespass 
upon human rights — -that institution endeavoring to destroy the 
Republicanism, the fathers of this people fought seven years to 
establish, and yet the degenerate, deluded children unwilling 
the destinies from heaven itself, should annihilate the unnatu- 
ral incubus. The bereaved hearts this war causes to mourn, 
will have occasion to remember that had the Tocsin bell of 
G-arrison been properly responded to by the citizens of the non- 
slaveholding States, this war would have been averted, and 
slavery been abolished. 

Had the ordinary influences of moral remonstrance failed, 
this writer knows of a scheme of voluntary emancipation, 
which would have been introducted in '51, with an abso- 
lute certainty of success, but the arrangements of the conspira- 
tors fostered by the wet nurses of the North, having become 
perfect, interdicted any possibility of even introducing the sub- 
ject, and much more, the practical application. And, since the 
commencement of the war, it is perfectly plain to those quali- 
fied to estimate the inherent forces, that had the north been 
willing to abolish slavery, and permit the colored people to 
assist in their own disenthrallment, the first six months of the 
war would have crushed the rebellion. 

The remainder of the carnage and cost of the war must be 



48 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

considered as the cost of the education of the people back into 
the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, 
and incorporated into the basis of the National Constitution. 
Had we been independent of a providential ministration from 
the supernal spheres, the rebellion might then have been nip- 
ped in the bud, as was the nuUification of '32. But the 
chronometer of the world's destiny had struck the hour for the 
disenthrallment of the oppressed of all races. The hist four 
years had signalized the enfranchisement of the serfs of Rus- 
sia — the rescue of the Italians from the triple despotism which 
had for ages cursed them — all over the world the signs of re- 
generation become more portentous at each succeeding ye;ir. 
and the dooms-day of American slavery appeared upon the 
dial of 1863. The powers of heaven had been able to find, 
but one means at command for the accomplishment of this greac 
task. Puritania ftiiled to heed the call ; the slave country was 
too extensive, and military appliances had become too complex 
and potent to admit of possibility of success by insurrection of 
the slaves ; the country was too strong for a foreign invasion of 
even all Christendom combined; Cyclops had interdicted both 
the voluntary emancipation of slaves, and the discussion of the 
subject; nothing remained but to propel the rebellion, all ready 
sturdy in its growth, to dimensions so gigantic as to require 
the destruction of slavery for its defeat. 

This accounts for the apparently stupid apathy of the north, 
and the idea of the rebels that Providence was on their side. 
This design of Providence and the corresponding ministry of 
angels controlling human destinies, explains the amazing 
problem of a Republican President, and Congress, permitting 
traitor Generals to do for the rebels, what all their own forces 
could not do, defeat our otherwise invincible armies, and keep 
them from speedily crushing the enemy. 

This is the only possible solution of the astounding fact that 
a President of Republican principles, devoted to the interests of 
the country and mankind, during a long year and more, kept at 
the head of our magnificent army, a wretch whose only recom- 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 49 

menclation was the proclamation that " any insurrection of 
slaves should be put down with an iron hand," A traitor 
whose first act was to claim a victory where it had been won by 
RosecrauS; and himself had robbed that victory of its' natural 
fruits; his second, disgraceful treatment of old General Scott; 
his third, disobedience of the President ; his fourth, restraining 
all the forces from attacking the enemy ; his fifth, an attempt to 
deliver the Capitol into the hands of the enemy by planning to 
get his army to the opposite side of the rebel forces, with no 
possibility of being got back; the sixth, sitting down at York- 
town one hundred thousand strong, before thirteen thousand of 
the enemy, and waiting for them to reinforce and fortify ; his 
seventh, failing to pursue the routed rebels to Richmond, when 
nothing but his orders prevented ; his eighth, sitting down in 
the swamps of the Chickahominy to destroy his army by sick- 
ness while waiting for the enemy to render the fortifications of 
Richmond impregnable, and collect a sufficient force to provide 
the traitor an excuse for getting his army captured; his 
ninth, setting Casey's Division unsupported^half-way from the 
Chickahominy to Richmond that they might be captured, while 
all the other Divisions were still back of the Chickahominy ; 
the tenth, retreating a victorious army to the James River, 
instead of pursuing a vanquished foe into Richmond ; his 
eleventh, going down the river on a vessel, and waiting for his 
army to be annihilated ; his twelfth, disobeying Halleck's 
orders to make speedy time back to Washington, to co-operate 
with Pope ; his thirteenth, refusing to send supplies to Pope at 
Bull Run ; his fourteenth, plotting with his brother traitors to 
get an appointment to the command of t\\e army in Maryland ; 
his fifteenth, moving that army at the rate of six miles a day ; 
his sixteenth, accomplishing the loss of Harper' Ferry ; his 
seventeenth, permitting the shattered rebel to escape from Antie- 
tam ; his eighteenth, refusing to follow the rebels up the Shen- 
andoah ; his nineteenth, repeated disobedience to his superiors ; 
his twentieth, his systematic endeavors to corrupt the army of 
the Potomac. 

5 



50 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

Such is the damning record of the hero of the Caiuite party 
of the North. Such the material of which that party is labor- 
ing to make a candidate for the next Presidential campaign. 

As the dismissal of Fremont from the command of the 
Department of the West opened the way for the return of the 
rebels to the districts from which he had driven them, by which 
four months of time were directly lost, and the enemy enabled 
to so fortify the Mississippi that we have not yet been able to 
open that important thoroughfare. 

So Buell's removal of Mitchell from Tennessee, provided for 
the rebel incursion into Kentucky, and Buell had previously 
planned to secure the annihilation of Grant's army at Pitts- 
burg Landing, but was foiled by Nelson, who, in disobedience 
to Buell's orders, crossed the river in time to prevent such a 
catastrophe. 

And the appointment of Pope to the army of Virginia where 
the appointment belonged to Fremont, who had just driven the 
enemy from the valley of the Shenandoah, and who then would 
have occupied Grordonsville, the key to the valley, — provided' 
for all the sickening carnage of the incursion of the rebels into 
Maryland. 

It would seem that this constant reverse of our forces, 
when the righteous idea of the disenthrallment of the slaves 
was trampled under foot by the displacement of those officers 
who pre-eminently represented that idea, would have opened the 
understanding of the Northern people to the pointings of Prov- 
idence, as indicating a demand to "Let the oppressed go free." 
This may have been one of the most effectual considerations 
inducing the Executive to proclaim the freedom of such as the 
rebellion had already absolved from all legal servitude. But 
the Cainite gallows criminals of the North, taking advantage of 
what oppposition still remained to the abolition of slavery, 
assisted by all their Cainite gulled calves, which, like calf buf- 
faloes, implicitly follow any hunter who. finding them asleep, 
shall hold his hands over their eyes till they take his scent ; by 
the Cainite greasy calves, who are afraid of an expected con- 
scription ; by the Cainite guzzling crew, a^ ho esteem a good 
drunk above all the behests of republican civilization ; by Cain- 
ite grasping clutchers, who to get rich, seduce their neighbors 
to ruin, that themselves may filch their property from them ; 
and by the Cainite Gomorrah cravens, who combining the dram 
shop, the gambling den, the bawdy theatrical, and the lewd 
chamber, in one hellish maelstrom, to prey upon victims, 
who being once drawn within its yawning vortex, rarely escape. 
Such were the precious combination of hell's best, who under 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR 51 

the panoply and prestige of the perpetual and faithful ally of 
Cyclops, the Democratic party, by a tremendous effort of lying, 
and every other possible fraud, and in the absence of the Re- 
publican voters, who constitute the bulk of the army, carried 
the late elections in the middle States. This effort seems to 
have been a last desperate throw of the Cainites of the gallows 
crime, both North and South, in concert with the doings of 
McClellan and Buell, with the spasmodic incursions of the 
rebels east and west to make one more effort to bring all of the 
North, except New England, under the slave power, through 
the restoration of the supremacy of the Democratic party, and 
yielding up the National Grovernment into the hands of Cyclops 
in the election of sixty-four, should it be possible to so hinder 
the military operations as to prolong the war till that time. 
The Democratic party — it is to be regretted that necessity com- 
pels the application to American citizens, of that name, which 
is doomed to be in history the term which will more than all 
others combined represent the greatest degree of unrighteous 
villainy, this party, elated by their success at the elections, 
cast off the mask, boldly avowed their intentions to subvert the 
government, and increased their appliances for the ruin of the 
armies. But the soldiers, indignant beyond expression, gave 
them such a response as has compelled them to change their 
tactics to the more dangerous plan of apparent acquiescence in 
the motions of the Administration while to more secretly sap 
the foundations of its power. 

Having strenuously opposed the employment in the army of 
colored people, whether free or slave, and secured the cessation 
of volunteer enlistments, the Democratic members of Congress, 
in a solid column, voted against a conscription themselves had 
rendered the only means by which the army could be replen- 
ished. They now, taking advantage of the misapplied leniency 
of the Administration, are taking the stump, talking treason 
and urging resistance to the draft. And with their usual 
degree of brass, allege that the draft was ordered for the pur- 
pose of persecuting the Democrats, — because, forsooth, four- 
fifths of the volunteers were from the Republican party, and 
the other fifth were those who by nature belong to Republican- 
ism. Poor fellows I there is no relief for them, for although 
resistance to the draft is talked of, nothing would more please 
the outraged Patriots in the army than to be commissioned to 
expunge that class of traitors. They dare not involve such 
demonstration, and the more shrewd of the Cainites have begun 
to double upon themselves and chew their criminal speeches. 
Thus stand affairs after two years of terrible war for the life of 



52 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

Republican Civilization, and of our Nation, its only stable home. 
A convenient occasion for recounting the results thus far of the 
contest. 

Commencing with hardly the germ of either army or navy, 
with deeply seated determination on the part of the government, 
and of nine-tenths of the people, to wage the war so as by all 
means to preserve Cyclops, with the fifteen slave states either in 
actual rebellion, or waiting till the proper time to become so, 
with no power but the national military to prevent, and every 
department of the government benumbed by the presence of 
disguised traitors of every degree, from such as desired the 
universal establishment of despotism, with slavery, to those who 
only care to enrich themselves by plunder from any possible 
source, and any sacrifice of carnage to the country. 

Naval warfare has been completely revolutionized. A naval 
power superior to any other afloat, has been created, and all 
places in the hands of the rebels, to which the navy can 
approach, excepting Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, Wilming- 
ton, Yicksburg, Port Hudson, and Gralveston, have been cap- 
tured from the enemy. 

A volunteer army of eight hundred thousand (800,000) men 
has been enlisted, armed and equipped, and fought more battles 
and kept up a longer stretch of lines than was ever known in any 
other war, and have subdued the rebellion from all except an 
equivalent of five and a half states ; divided the Old Dominion, 
and secured the abolition of slavery in the new State of West 
Virginia, and opened the ball of Emancipation in Delaware, 
Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and determined 
the extinction of slavery in ail the remainder of Secessia. A 
large majority of the people are converted to the necessity, if 
not to the duty, of the abolishment of slavery in the relDel 
states, and are becoming convinced of the propriety of enlisting 
the freed men into the army. This also is manifestly a part of 
the progress of the Providential destiny which forces this great 
movement forward, whether human people favor or oppose. 
Because, that after peace be restored, the condition of the 
colored people of the cotton states will require that they should 
become qualified to protect themselves from the rapacity of 
their Caiuite neighbors. And it will not be very strange if the 
National Government finds a necessity for extending to them 
the rights of the elective franchise, as the means by which to 
secure in those states obedience to the requirements of the 
Constitution. 

The despotic elements in the governments of France and 
Britain, like hungry dogs fearing to get sore heads, keep up a 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 53 

constant snarling — the former, to vent his spleen, pitching into 
Mexico, with the result of uniting that distracted people in the 
support of the anti-Jesuit government — and the latter, covertly 
fitting out blockade-running merchant vessels, and an iron-clad 
pirate navy, for the benefit of the rebels. All of which will 
evoke special Jesse, when the day of reckoning comes. 

This last idea brings us round again to the Democratic party, 
which, as if its infamy could not else appear complete, when a 
war with Britain is imminent — assisted by the interest of Rail- 
road Corporations, accomplished the defeat of the plan for 
admitting gunboats through enlarged locks in the Erie, and 
Illinois canals — thus continuing the defenceless condition of the 
lakes, whose towns are all exposed, and whose commerce is 
double the entire foreign trade of the nation. And a scheme, 
the execution of which will enhance the pecuniary interests of 
every citizen of the Northern States, from Maine to California. 
This explains why the President, and General Agent, of the 
New York Central Railroad have been members in the Thirty- 
seventh Congress, where their influence could be most fatally 
exerted to defeat this most important measure — that being a 
darling project of the railroads. 

Let the citizens of Puritania remember, that since the sun of 
slavery is set, this railroad combination is the most dangerous 
enemy, likely to attempt the subversion of Republican Liberty — ■ 
that assisted by the Democratic Party, they have only been 
hindered from robbing the country of the behests of the great 
Clinton river, by the sudden uprising of the Republican Party 
— stimulated by the proprietors of ten millions of property per- 
taining to the canal commerce, which the State of New York 
was obligated to protect, and which the fraudulent proceedings 
of the Central Railroad Company had at one time consigned to 
useless decay. Let it be fully comprehended that the speedy 
enlargement of the capacity of these canals, so as to permit the 
passage through them of vessels, as large as can profitably do 
business on the lakes, is the only means by which the grasping 
railroad combinations can be prevented from acquiring control of 
the elections, and the commerce, and consequently of the liber- 
ties of the people. In this nefarious scheme they will count upon 
the assistance of all the allies of the Democratic Party. One 
of these, the brothel interest, has not been openly known as an 
element in politics, until the Gubernatorial campaign of '62, 
when in the form of the concert saloon interest, in which was 
combined all that can be marshalled to the destruction of 
morality, and in short, all virtue, it gave the casting vote of 
thirty thousand in New York City, by which the twenty 



54 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

thousand majority from the Puritans of the rural portion of the 
state, were rendered nugatory. Their slavocratic ally will 
soon expire — but their old right-bower, grog, begins to shoW' 
signs of renewed vigor, and must receive special attention. It 
is about forty years since the American people began to become 
alarmed by the extent of the ravages of alcoholic intoxication, 
and the rapid increase of drunkenness, which threatened to 
whelm the entire population in one common ruin. Entering 
into the domestic, and the social habits of the people — it had 
become one of the controlling institutions of the land. 
Ubiquitous, it had invaded the nursery, the kitchen, the pantry, 
the parlor, the shop, the field — in short, wherever people 
labored, or visited, or recreated, there was the monster found 
— and thence his conscripts marshalled. His besotted victims 
numbered three hundred thousand (300,000) strong, when the 
population of the nation was about twelve millions — and his 
annual slaughter of human sacrifices being ten per cent, of the 
sots, amounted to thirty thousand. The descendants of the 
Puritans rebelled against such vassalage, and through the 
indomitable energy, and perseverance, for which the race is 
distinguished, succeeded in rolling back the swelling tide, and 
have almost completely rescued these departments of life, from 
the polluting presence of the ruthless destroyer. Perfect 
success seemed about to crown the victorious Abel of Temper- 
ance — when the gorgon found shelter behind the counter of the 
inn-keeper, where, protected by the aegis of that ever ready 
ally of any Cainite Grievous Curse, the Democratic Party — it 
has during many years stood at bay, gnashing, and foaming, at 
all opponents, and taking many prisoners from the unwary who 
chanced within his reach. The Temperance Army never pro- 
posed the use of other means than persuasion, and moral influ- 
ence, to prevent men from using the destroying draught. But 
in the Cainite style of misrepresentation, the political allies of 
drunkenness, made such charge a specific power, in use against 
both the moral force brought to bear against the drinking, and 
the political power arrayed against the privilege of making 
^taverns, and hotels, and groceries where people's business 
ireq'i?ired them to be — specially and legally endorsed — institu- 
tions vor enticing the else virtuous to deepest ruin. The 
eonjimoB Cainite question has been — "What! deny me the 
privilege ^f drinking what I please ?" That has not been pro- 
posed—nor will it be. But Cain — be assured of this, that, 
other people have rights, and it is the fundamental principle of 
the Constitution of this nation, that those rights, and the privi- 
lege of their <exercise, are to be protected — and that principle 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 55 

was transcribed from the eternal laws of existing Nature. Are 
you a husband — the wife of your bosom has a right to clean 
breath, the respectability of a sober man's home, and an 
honored partner's society. Are you a wife — the husband of 
your choice has a right to the possession of an unsullied jewel. 
Are you a parent — you have assumed an obligation from which 
naught but death can absolve you, to provide for the necessi- 
ties, the culture, and the honored name of the children of your 
plighted vows. Are you a child — the parents to whom you are 
indebted for being, care, and manhood, have a right to be 
honored in your nobility, and in their declining years, sustained 
by your respondent care. Yes, Cain, it is not only the right, 
but the imperative duty, of society, to protect its members 
from the desolating devastations of alcoholic intoxication. You 
will be left to drink what you choose — so long as the drinking 
does not invade the rights of others. But from time immemo- 
rial, society has exercised the right to regulate, and limit the 
sale, and drinking, at places of public resort, of alcoholic 
beverages, because the circumstances connected with such 
drinking, do not leave people to their choice as determined 
in their unexcited moments — but through various influences 
impels them to drink to excess — and generates destructive 
habits. The former license laws, based upon the supposition 
that alcoholic beverages were necessary to the traveler, provided 
that the tavern should be supplied for such purpose, while all 
possible restrictions were connected with this arrangement 
through which the neighboring residents, were to be restrained 
from being enticed by its presence. Investigation of the sub- 
ject has settled the question with the established fact, that, 
alcoholic drinks are not necessary to the traveler — and history 
has co-ordinately shown, that the habit of drinking such intox- 
icating beverage at public inns, is of necessity a dangerous 
element in society — a nuisance of such demoralizing power, as 
to demand the most emphatic determination of the people, for 
its extinction. If some will use the poison, let them do as 
invalids do — carry their doses with them. 

Such be the allies, whose aggregated forces, constitute the 
power of the Democratic Party, which will henceforth be known 
as the embodiment of all principles of evil, and their unscrupu- 
lous supporter. Such be the party, whose history must soon be 
completed — and from which ever}^ consideration of virtue, 
every exalted aspiration of human nature, every cherished hope 
of spiritual excellence, demand of all honest men, who, either 
born in the party, or enticed by the sophism of its unappre- 
ciated name, that they cease to associate in fellowship with 



56 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

Cain — and that like Lot from Sodom, they hasten from its bor- 
ders, that the smiting angel be not longer hindered. Leave 
to such as are Cainites by nature, the work of concocting 
schemes for subverting the rights of the people, and the 
hindrance of civilization. Leave to those to whom it is natural, 
to mourn over the extinction of slavery, a portion of whose 
inflictions have been enumerated in the preceding pages — but 
whose deeper woes we leave to be accounted by the many mil- 
lions whose experiences enable them to appreciate its horrors, 
and whose attorneys, as the Providential Ministry, are at 
present most terribly adjusting the balance sheets of the record. 
The expensive sacrifice of a holocaust of martyrs upon the altars 
of Republican Civilization has this relief, that, while it makes 
desolate the homes whose circles miss the offered victims — the 
loss clouds not the recollection with dishonor — and the future 
kindred of the glorious slain, will worship at their shrines. 
Leave to the natural Cainite, to foster, and protect, the Concert 
Saloon, whose atmosphere is pollution, whose entrance is the 
vestibule of hell, whose ruined victim brings dismay to the 
household, and whose vacant place chills the heart with an 
unmitigated anguish. But the experience of those whose 
sufferings attest the intensity of their desolation, present the 
record of sorrows this Cainite Circe entails. 

Leave to the natural Cainite, to sustain the gorgon of drun- 
kenness, in the form of the legalized dram-shop, whose trade is 
the manufacture of drunkards, to the desolation of more homes, 
than be produced by any other destroyer. Had this evil been 
left to continue to increase, only as the increase of population, 
at the present time, the drunkards' army would have been 
seven hundred and fifty thousand (750,000) sots, with an equal 
number of recruits on drill, besides the incipient militia — 
exhibiting a greater army than the slave war has yet evoked 
from both parties to the contest — and an annual slaughter of a 
hundred thousand victims, whose demise brings relief — whose 
deeds remain unhonored and unsung — but not unwe}>t. 

Leave to the natural allies of the '' Sum of all villanies'^ to 

repeat the Cainite gibberish cant — "D d Abolitionists," 

"Woolly Head," "Black Republicans," "Nigger on the Brain," 
etc., which serves the double purpose of ventilating the Cainite 
spleen, and keeping the Cainite graceless calves in the tram- 
mels of the party, but is a piece of that tactics which ever 
applies to the opposite party, whatever disease or folly itself is 
subject to. Yes, nigger on the brain, from those who long 
since became monomanics with color-phobia. "Black Republi- 
cans," from those whose machinations by alliance with the 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 57 

blackness of slavery, have sapped the foundations of all that is 
democratic in our institutions. " Abolition war," from the party 
whose prophet Jackson predicted the rebellion, and which could 
not have culminated but through the assistance of the party, 
by drowning the voices raised in warning against the black and 
lurid storm, seen gathering over the Southern horizon, and 
which has burst with such unparalleled fury over our devoted 
land, saved only by the Republican rally around the Constitu- 
tion, the Capital and the Country. Black — aye black ! Let 
such mono-maniacs not forget it were their own impious hands 
which brought black drapery of mourning into almost every 
household of this desolated but erst happy land; and that those 
sable vestments be the ghosts which shall forever haunt their 
guilty visions. 

Cainites all ! Your evil brood have come home to roost, and 
they eat out your homes forever. Retribution is after you, and 
no hope of yours is left — no chance for escape, except abdica- 
tion and perpetual seclusion. The spear of Ithuriel is athwart, 
your way to unmask your lying sorceries ; the bayonets of the 
outraged Volunteers are behind you, forcing you on to destruc- 
tion. The indignant angel ministry hovers above you, closing 
effectually your approach to Heaven. The pit of oblivion 
yawns beneath you, and its denizens already dance antics, joy- 
fully anticipating your speedy arrival, when they will enjoy, 
chasing you to the darkest recesses of perdition. 

The energy of the Republican party saved the nation from 
the destruction Cyclops had prepared for it, and the acceptance 
by that party of the destined overthrow of slavery, though 
reluctantly, and after passing the most fiery ordeals, has obvia- 
ted the necessity for an entire breaking up of the foundations 
of the government, and provides for the final merging of our 
institutions into that complete and universal system, which the 
entire world is being rapidly prepared to adopt.- 

That will be the ultimate, for the development of which 
Abraham was commissioned to found a series of religious insti- 
tutions, to consist of five great acts or parts — the Patriarchal, 
the Servitudal, the Theocratic, the Christian, and the Spiritual. 
The time for the commencement of the third, of which Abraham 
predicted; and the times of the commencement of the fourth 
and fifth, of which were distinctly and explicitly represented by 
Daniel. That last time has arrived, and the transition of the 
world into its forms of Christian, or more correctly, its Spiritual 
Republican Civilization, is rapidly progressing. Four thousand 
years of special angel ministry has been required to develop the 
human conditions needful for such final establishment of man 



58 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

upon the beautiful estate of his adult life, and permanent exal- 
tation. The Kepublicans of to-day are called to the great 
work of this regeneration of the human people, and upon them 
devolves in consequence, the most tremendous responsibilities. 
The conditions of this labor demand the most intense earnest- 
ness, and the most ceaseless vigilance, for as the Cainite foes of 
virtuous civilization find the elements of their doom crushing in 
upon them from all directions, they whet the edge of their 
malice, and increase the ingenuity of their devices, for the 
retention of their grasp upon the spoils of domination. Re- 
publicans must follow them even to the seemingly little things. 
and unmask their sophistries and thwart their plans. 

Even at this writing, ere yet the sound of their traitorous 
utterances have ceased to carry dismay to the hearts of the 
people, and anguish to the bosoms of the volunteers ; apparently 
caused by the first ominous tap of the drum and gleam of the 
bayonets, of that eight hundred thousand outraged soldiers, in 
response to the threatened reaction at the North, they have cun- 
ningly faced about, and already prate as though themselves were 
the very residuaries of all patriotic virtue. Be not deceived 
by this light-fingered shuffling of the political cards. He- 
member it is no new game of theirs. Like herdsmen driving 
their cattle to the shambles, when a panic starts the cattle back 
so furiously as to defy all efforts to stop them, they run before 
the herd till the effects of the excitement have passed off, when 
they skilfully turn them about, and drive the unthinking herd 
to certain slaughter. Remember the men of this practise, and 
let none forget the malignant chuckle with which they ever 
greet any calamity to the army, and the quickness with which 
they ventilate their treason whenever misfortune to the govern- 
ment furnishes them a gleam of hope for the success of their 
nefarious schemes for the destruction of our fair Temple of 
Liberty. 

Neither permit the unwary to be ensnared by the desire of 
getting a disguised Cainite who is as if he were Nott, to har- 
rangue the people upon the science of government, that he 
may find a covert opportunity to bleat the doctrines of secesh 
treason, under the prestige of the institution of literary lectures. 

Nor yet be induced to give certain Cainite people too much 
credit for political virtue, because forsooth, possessing genial 
sympathies, or religious fervor, or mercantile honor, which ren- 
ders them apparently amiable, urbane citizens, and hospitable 
neighbors. Lacking the force of that integritv which might 
sustain them in the trial hour, they ever, like broken reeds, 
fail, when really needed for succor. Often possessed of com- 



THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 59 

|>rehcnsive, far-seeing intellects, like the eagle disdaining the 
prey nearest their eyrie, the}^ acquire a reputation for probity at 
home, while at a distance many a noble quarry attests the rapa- 
city of their talons. Illustrate this principle by the mangement 
of the railroads, as a sample that of the New York Central. 
Soon as the keen glances of the big men comprehended the idea 
of a consolidated monopoly through the great natural highway 
of the nation's internal commerce, through which already 
flowed the freighted Clinton Hiver, and that in process of enlarge- 
ment, to correspond with the growth of trade, scenting a grand 
opportunity, and suborning the Democratic party, they secure 
the stoppage of that improvement which would soon have been 
ready to enrich the nation, and at a cost of a large proportion 
in damage of what would have been the cost of its completion. 
Next they subvert the law of the charter of the roads by annul- 
ing the tolls on their freight business. Then they develop a 
sj^stem of lake transportation, and control freight from the ca- 
nal, through purchases at the West, and monopolize the carry- 
ing business of the lakes. One more item completes the scheme 
by which they were to compel the State to sell them the canal, 
when their control of this great system of commerce would 
have been complete — the people's control of the State Grovern- 
ment destroyed — and the monopoly piled up wealth without 
limit through a tax upon this commerce, compared with which 
a foreign tariff becomes insignificant. That item was the con- 
veying of goods and produce between the East and West, at a 
cost hardly exceeding what their published reports assure to be 
the cost through this State alone. That is, they report the 
absolute cost to them of a barrel of flour from Buffalo to New 
York City, to be forty-seven cents, and at the same time were 
carrying it from Davenport, Iowa, to New York City at fifty 
cents a barrel. And then goods from the East were carried on 
the same principle, so that, as an instance, a cabinet-manufac- 
turer at Buffalo, was obliged to remove to Connecticut, because 
it cost so much more to send West from Buffalo, than from the 
latter place, he could not compete with eastern establishments, 
though their distance of transportation was five hundred miles 
greater. But defeated in this scheme, they are still alert, and 
their President and General Superintendent have been in Con- 
gress for the purpose of defeating that enlargement of the 
locks of the canal, rendered necessary by the rebellion they had 
assisted to evoke, because that measure by providing for the 
passage of steamers as large as can profitably navigate the lakes, 
would forever destroy their hope of obtaining control of this 
commerce, and of subverting the liberties of the people. Let 



60 THE ISSUES OF THE HOUR. 

the citizens of all Puritania, and especially the volunteers, re- 
member that this rich railroad corporation, who pay their Pres- 
ident a salary just equal to that of the President of the United 
States, refused to convey a few miles gratis, a returning soldier 
of Michigan, who had lost a leg and an arm, and had a shot 
through his upper jaw, but set him off at Canandaigua. 

It is not uncommon for railroad companies to have two sets of 
dividends — a small one for the outs, but a large one for the ins. 
Men who will practise as above are not too honest to do this, 
and those who choose may believe such be not the practice of the 
New York Central. Let it be forgotten that now the slave 
monopoly is annihilated, and the grog-ruin monopoly crippled, 
the railroad monopoly backed b}'' the consistent Democratic 
party, which is ever crying against monopolies, is rapidly grow- 
ing to be the most powerful, and the most dangerous institution 
left to threaten Republican Freedom. 

In conclusion, let Republicans remember that their task is 
hardly yet begun. There is for such no rest, until all those 
foes to the rights of human nature, treated of in these pages, 
are rendered effete. Be sure to affect permanent systematic 
organizations in every county, city, ward, and town, in the land. 
Be diligent and earnest for this great cause of spiritual civiliza- 
tion. Leave alone all natural Cainites, but with your neigh- 
bors who are only misguided, labor to open their understand- 
ings to a realization that whatever of good has been in the 
Democratic party, that good has left its such abode. Show 
them that the only important issues are now directly between 
Republican liberty and despotic tyranny. Be not distracted to 
the non-essential incidents of personal affairs, but cling closely 
to the records of history, and the principles men act. Remem- 
ber that in this essay you receive the truths' of history, though 
not cumbered with the statistical demonstrations. Make relent- 
less war upon the lying policy of the Democratic Press, and 
build up your own power upon pillars of truth. 



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